V.
Tunniclife was quoted in The Fountain,
Jan.-Mar. 1996, No 13, p.36:

Startling
discovery of modern biology

All
life requires energy, nearly all
life on earth looks to the sun as
the source. But solar energy is
not the only kind of energy
available on the earth. Consider
the energy that drives the
movement and eruption of the
planet’s crust. When you look at
an active volcano, you are
witnessing the escape of heat that
has been produced by radioactive
decay in the earth’s interior
and is finally reaching the
surface. Why should there not be
biological communities associated
with the same nuclear energy that
moves continents and makes
mountains? And why could not whole
communities be fuelled by
chemical, rather than, solar
energy?. . Most of us associate
the escape of heat from the
interior of the earth with violent
events and unstable physical
conditions, with extreme high
temperatures and the release of
toxic gasses-circumstances that
are hardly conducive to life.

The
notion that biological communities
might spring up in a geologically
active environment seemed
fantastic. And until recently, few
organisms were known to survive
without a direct or indirect way
to tap the sun’s energy. But
such communities do exist, and
they represent one of the most
startling discoveries of
20th-century biology. They live in
the deep ocean, under conditions
that are both severe and variable.

This
‘startling’ discovery of modern
biology contains clues to some other
realities, which sciences should
consider. The Qur’an declares:

Surely,
We have adorned the world’s
heaven with lamps, and We have
made them missiles for the devils.
(al-Mulk, 67.5)

The
‘startling’ discovery of biology
suggests that just as the earth does,
the heavens should also have inhabitants
of their own. Indeed, reality also
requires it to be so, for, as Said Nursi
writes (The Words 1, Izmir, 1997,
pp. 233-42), despite its small size and
relative insignificance, the earth being
alternately emptied and filled with
living and conscious beings
suggests-rather, it shows evidently-that
the heavens too, which have magnificent
constellations and are like decorated
palaces, must also be filled with
conscious and percipient beings. For the
Creator has embellished and ornamented
the universe with innumerable
decorations, beauties, and inscriptions,
and this evidently requires the
existence of contemplative and
appreciative eyes that will observe and
be delighted. Certainly, beauty requires
a lover, and food is given to the
hungry. Men and jinn are able to perform
only a millionth of this boundless duty,
this glorious viewing, and this
comprehensive worship. This means that
countless sorts of angels and spirit
beings are necessary to perform these
infinite and diverse duties and acts of
worship.

The
Creator Who continuously creates subtle
life and enlightened, percipient beings
from dense earth and turbid water, must
certainly have created conscious beings
from light and even from darkness which
are worthier to have a higher life and
spirit, and created them in great
abundance. In the language of Islam,
those inhabitants of various kinds are
called angels.

The
earth and the heavens are connected to
each other like two countries under one
government

The
earth and the heavens are connected to
each other like two countries under one
government. There are important
relations and transactions between them.
Things necessary for the earth like
light, heat, blessings, and forms of
mercy like rain, come, rather, are being
sent, from the sky. Also, as unanimously
confirmed by all the heavenly religions,
which are founded on Revelation, and as
is agreed upon by all the saintly
scholars who unveil the secret truths of
creation on the basis of what they have
witnessed, the angels and spirit beings
descend to the earth from the heavens.
From this, it may be concluded almost as
certainly as if it were directly sensed
that for the inhabitants of the earth
there is a way to ascend to the heavens.

Indeed,
everyone can always travel to the
heavens through his mind, vision and
imagination. So too, freed from or
purified of the gross heaviness of their
carnal and material being, the spirits
of the Prophets and saints travel there
by God’s leave, and the spirits of the
ordinary people do so after their death.
Since those who are ‘lightened’ and
have acquired ‘subtlety’ and
spiritual refinement travel there, for
sure, certain inhabitants of the earth
and the air who are clothed in an ‘ideal’
body or energetic envelope or immaterial
form, and are light and subtle like
spirits, may go to the heavens. Since
there is journeying between the earth
and the heavens, and important
necessities for the earth are sent from
the heavens; and since pure spirits
travel to the heavens, for sure,
imitating the pure spirits, the evil
spirits too will attempt to travel to
the heavenly abode. For, physically,
they are light and subtle. However, they
will certainly be repulsed and repelled,
for by nature they are evil and unclean.
Again, as the silence and tranquility,
the order and serene regularity of the
heavens, and their vastness and
radiance, show, their inhabitants are
not like those of the earth; they are
all obedient to God and do whatever He
commands them. There is nothing to cause
quarrels or disputes among them because
they are innocent, their realm is vast,
their nature is pure, and their stations
are fixed. So, when devils or evil
spirit beings attempt to ascend the
heavens, the pure inhabitants of the
heavens are mobilized to repel them from
the heavens.

There
must be a sign or reflection in the
visible, material world of whatever
takes place in the kingdom of heavens

Without
doubt, there must be a sign or
reflection in the visible, material
world of this important interaction and
contest. For the wisdom of the
sovereignty of Divine Lordship requires
that the Lord should put a sign, an
indication, for conscious beings,
particularly for man, whose most
important duty is observing, witnessing,
supervising, and acting as a herald to,
His significant disposals in the realm
of the Unseen. This is just as He has
made rain a sign for men to explain, in
physical terms, His countless miracles
in spring, and also made apparent
(natural) causes the pointers to the
wonders of His art, so that He may call
the inhabitants of the visible, material
world to witness them, indeed to attract
the attentive gaze of all the
inhabitants of the vast heavens and the
earth to that amazing exhibition. That
is, He displays the vast heavens as a
castle or city arrayed with towers on
which sentries are posted, so that those
inhabitants of the heavens and earth may
reflect on the majesty of His Lordship.

Since
wisdom requires the announcement of this
elevated contest, there will surely be a
sign for it. However, other than some
stars being used as ‘missiles’
against the devils, no event among those
of the atmosphere and heavens seems to
be appropriate to this announcement. For
it is evident how suitable for the
repulsion of the devils are these
stellar events, which resemble missiles
and signal rockets fired from the
formidable bastions of high castles.
Further, unlike other events taking
place in the heavens, no other function
is known for such stellar events. In
addition, this function has been known
widely since the time of Adam, and
witnessed by those who know the reality
of things and events.

Like
angels and other creatures, stars also
have many different varieties. Some are
extremely small, and some are extremely
large. Everything that shines in the sky
can be called a star. One sort of stars
the Majestic Creator, the Gracious
Maker, has created as a sort of jewels
on the face of the sky or like the
shining fruits of a vast tree. He has
also made them the places of excursion
or mounts or dwelling-places for His
angels. He has made one sort of small
stars missiles to drive off devils and
kill them. Thus, firing these shooting
stars to repulse devils may have three
meanings:

It
is a sign that the law of contest is
in force also in the most vast
sphere of existence.

It
indicates that in the heavens there
are watchful guards and obedient
inhabitants, Divine forces, who do
not like the earthly evil-doers to
mix with and eavesdrop on them.

The
spying satans, who are the
representatives of the foulness and
wickedness on the earth, attempt to
soil the clean and pure realm of the
heavens inhabited by pure beings,
and spy on the talk of their
inhabitants in the name of evil
spirits [unbelieving jinn and their
human companions trying to mislead
people especially through sorcery,
mediumship and soothsaying].
Shooting stars are fired to prevent
them and repulse them from the doors
of the heavens.

What
does the meteor shower signify?

The
Perseid meteor shower observed in almost
every year suggests that those meteors
are shot for certain, important
purposes. For they surprise the
observers by showing great diversity.
The observations made in, for example,
1993, demonstrate the fact that the
structure of the shower is yet poorly
known.

According
to information given by the
International Meteor Organization about
the events of the 1993 shower (Astronomy,
October 1993), the first results posted
for the night of 11/12 August came from
Japan. Up to 20:30 (all times UT), 11
August, the meteor rates were found to
be normal. A zenithal hourly rate (ZHR)
of 40 meteors per hour (m/h) was
tentatively assigned to the shower at
this time.

Preliminary
data from European observers indicated
that the rates had gradually increased
to ZHR of order 100 m/h between 20:00,
11 August and 01:00, 12 August.
Observers in France reported a
noticeable increase in rates after
00:30, 12 August, with the rate being
about twice that of ‘normal’. The
rates continued to climb between 01:00
and 03:00. A preliminary ZHR of 200-250
was ascribed to this period. The rates
appeared to reach a maximum between
03:00 and 03:30. The ZHR at maximum was
estimated to be of the order of 500.
Observations from the Canary Islands
indicated that the rates began to
decline after 04:00.

Higher
than normal rates were also reported
from many observers in the United States
and Japan. As commented by Martin Beech
in Astronomy, p.11, the results clearly
indicated that the shower did not behave
as predicted. Speculation about a
possible meteor storm proved incorrect.
Another unexpected feature in 1993 was
the high number of bright fireballs
observed. Observers reported something
like five times the normal level of
Perseid fireballs on the night of 11/12
August. The Perseid shower once again
demonstrated how difficult it is to
predict meteor shower activity.

A.
Cressy Morrison (Man Does Not Stand
Alone, New York, 1945, p.100)
mentions, as a typical human
characteristic, the reluctance to give
up fixed ideas, the stubborn resistance
to accepting unfamiliar truths. The
early Greeks knew the earth was a
sphere, but it took two thousand years
to convince men that this fact is true.
New ideas encounter opposition, ridicule
and abuse, but truth survives and is
verified. Neither scientific studies nor
developments in science can offer any
excuse not to accept God. What we
observe in nature and what we obtain
from it must encourage us to know Him
more closely and see the strong bridge
between science and religion, the world
and the Hereafter, and between the
reason and the spirit.